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Massachusetts
State
Senate
Approves
Needle
Exchange
Bill
6/2/00
(courtesy Pioneer Valley
Hepatitis C Action Project)
On Thursday (5/25), the Massachusetts
Senate approved a bill allowing state health officials to implement needle
exchange programs (NEPs). The bill must be approved by the House
and signed by Gov. Paul Cellucci before it becomes law. Cellucci
is said to support NEPs but believes that local communities, not the Public
Health Commissioner, should implement them.
Previous legislation allows
for local communities to implement NEPs, and they already exist in four
communities: Boston, Cambridge, Provincetown, and Northampton.
But some communities hardest hit by injection-related disease, including
Springfield, New Bedford and Worcester, have rejected local initiatives
to implement NEPs.
The new legislation is an
attempt to circumvent the ability of opponents of NEPs to derail local
initiatives by giving the Mass. Dept. of Public Health a free hand in implementing
their own program in those areas. The proposal was approved on the
last day of the Senate's debate of its annual budget. The outcome
of the legislation is uncertain.
Last month, New York state
took a different approach to liberalization of syringe availability by
passing a law to allow pharmacies to sell syringes to injection drug users
(see http://www.drcnet.org/wol/137.html#syringedecrim).
-- END --
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Issue #139, 6/2/00
DEA Supersnitch Goes Down in Flames, DEA Supervisors Next? Or, Who Will Investigate the Investigators? | Ecstasy Panic Looms: 1985 All Over Again? | Grow Canada: Health Canada Medical Marijuana Contract Has Bidders Abuzz | Two Drug Policy and Sentencing Reform Newsletters Come Out | ... While Another Newsletter Concludes Its Distinguished History | Pressure Builds to Reform Rockefeller Drug Laws | US Customs Urges Congress to Allow Searches of Out-of-Country Mail | Massachusetts State Senate Approves Needle Exchange Bill | Action AlertS | Media Scan | Event Calendar | Hartford, Connecticut Job Opportunity | Editorial: My First Controlled Substance
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